Armchair Reflections
by PlayerPiano
Summary: As his fiftieth birthday looms, Victor takes some time to reminisce about his past and the direction his life has taken.


**Author's Note: **This really isn't that much of a story. I sort of wanted to see what would happen if I just let Victor go off on his own for a while, without having to serve a plot. It's the same sort of thing that I did with Victoria in "An Afternoon in the Parlor," only Victor reflects on much more than just his relationship with Victoria. Any thoughts or suggestions would be greatly appreciated.

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**Armchair Reflections**

It was just a lazy, rainy Sunday morning, toward the end of winter. Very quiet, the bit of alone time that Victor enjoyed very much. He had the parlor to himself at the moment. He was sitting in his usual spot near the bay window in the parlor, sketching idly and letting his thoughts drift. Victoria was up in her sewing room, that he knew. She'd said she'd be down before lunchtime, though. As for Mary...who knew what she was up to.

It seemed remarkable that she was nineteen already. She was the only one of the children still living at home, and she was also, unlike her sisters had been, extremely difficult to keep tabs on. For whatever reason, it seemed to Victor that she'd completely lost her mind right around her fifteenth birthday. She'd lost interest in accompanying Victor on butterfly hunts or trips to the little creek near the house, instead spending hours upon hours in her bedroom with the Victrola playing loud enough to make the floor vibrate. Worse, for a little while her moodiness had begun to out-do Catherine's, a feat that that Victor had thought was quite impossible. Luckily, the mood swings had ebbed recently. It had been getting to the point where Victor was too nervous to even say "good morning" for fear of setting Mary off.

Of course, Victoria had said she was simply at "that age," and had assured him that everything was fine, and that it only _appeared_ that Mary had gone barking mad. Victor had had to remind her that none of the other girls had spent their teenage years locked up by themselves or disappearing into the village for hours on end (disappearances that usually ended with new clothes and books--and occasionally a new young man coming round for tea--for Mary, and a huge bill--and fits of worry that accompanied every new gentleman friend--for Victor). To which Victoria had pointed out that it must be rather hard for Mary, being so much younger than her sisters, seeing them getting married and probably feeling left behind, and so forth. Victor saw her point, and felt that it probably made a lot of sense, but still...he couldn't help but feel a little hurt that Mary treated Victoria as a friend while treating him as an interesting curiosity they kept about the house for their general amusement. An interesting curiosity that doubled as a walking billfold, no less. But still, she was his daughter, and he loved her very much, even with all of the slightly unsettling changes in her behavior. And she _did _condescend to play checkers with him every once in a while, as she had regularly when she was little. That was something. Victor grinned slightly to himself.

Nineteen. Goodness, Victor and Victoria had gotten _married _when they were nineteen...but marriage didn't seem to be in Mary's foreseeable future. She didn't seem to be the least bit interested in finding a husband at the moment (which was fine by Victor, since the only young man who'd been coming around to see her lately was a muscled fellow with a motorcar, a camera, and _way _too much self-confidence).

Victor shifted in his chair a bit, pulling his drawing closer. Turning it about and giving it a critical eye, he thought that he had better re-think trying to draw rain through the window. He was already getting quite a bit of mileage out of his new sketchbook. Victoria had given it to him for his birthday a few months ago.

Yes, his birthday. Pausing in the middle of putting the finishing touches on his drawing, he looked at the quill for a moment. _It's very hard to believe,_ he thought.

He was only one year shy of being fifty years old.

For whatever reason, the fact of his age, of how long fifty years really was, hadn't fully struck him until this moment. Staring off into the middle distance, he sat back in his armchair. He twirled his quill about in his fingers as he sunk into thought.

_I've seen almost half of a century...and so has Victoria,_ he realized. They had been married for...Victor stopped to count. Goodness--their thirtieth wedding anniversary was approaching. _Thirty years, _Victor thought, shaking his head in amazement. It certainly didn't feel like thirty years. A happy blur that couldn't be measured in time was what it felt like.

And to think...Just to think that he had come within a hair's breadth of being nineteen forever. At that thought, which came to him rather often, Victor sat back even farther, letting the sketchbook begin to slide from his lap. All that he would have missed...including growing up. He felt that he had grown up, and quite a bit, too. He even had the slightly bald pate to prove it.

Dead at nineteen...Looking back, he saw that he couldn't have been thinking all that clearly. He certainly hadn't been thinking ahead to his fiftieth birthday, that was for sure. It hadn't even occurred to him that he would never have seen the sun rise or set ever again, never mind thinking thirty years down the line. Actually, Victor realized, stroking his chin with the end of his quill, he wouldn't even have _had _a fiftieth birthday. _An anniversary of death day, maybe, _he thought.

In any case, he wouldn't have been able to celebrate the occasion with a trip to Italy, as he and Victoria had done for her last birthday. He never would have got to see Italy. Which, obviously, meant that he would have missed out on seeing Victoria back away very quickly from an overly aggressive gelato salesman in Rome. She'd hidden behind Victor there on the sunny piazza, but had kept her parasol in a stab-ready position--just in case Victor had been unable to convince the man that she wasn't interested in buying any of his wares. They'd ended up taking refuge in one of the little shops along the piazza, which had had a sympathetic proprietor. And the rest of the day had been lovely...out in the country near a little river, a picnic blanket...Yes, a lovely day. And a lovely trip. Though they'd stayed far away from gelato for the rest of their visit, just in case. In remembering that little episode, Victor put his fingers to his lips, over his smile.

Victoria. Vic-tor-i-a. She had such an elegant name. He never tired of saying it. Even for all of the gas lamps, candles, and fireplaces, it was Victoria herself who kept the house lit. It was very strange, but their house always seemed...brighter than anywhere else in the little village. Less gray, less dour. From the moment they'd married, actually, the world had seemed a bit more colorful, more light. Perhaps happiness had something to do with it. Companionship, affection...and love.

Victoria. What would have happened to _her_, if events thirty years ago had gone differently? Victor's smile faded as his mind turned in that direction. He felt a cold spot start to grow in his stomach, and creep up toward his heart as he considered. Just because it wasn't a very nice place, Victor often simply refused to let his imagination go there. But today, for whatever reason, the thoughts were coming unbidden.

She definitely wouldn't have seen Italy. Nor would she have been a mother, in all likelihood. Oh, that would have been hard for her--Victoria loved their children beyond all reason, and had a fondness for children in general. She wouldn't have lived in this house, which she and Victor had designed together the first year they were married. She wouldn't have made the antimacassar that he was leaning his head against at this very moment. Her life, married to that Barkis, would have been a nightmare.

Although, she probably wouldn't have been married to him for long. He would have killed her. Victor was sure of it. He couldn't stop a slight shudder, nor a brief upsurge of rage, when the memory of that night in the church flashed into his mind. Victoria standing there, her eyes pleading with Victor for help, a blade at her throat. That image was quickly replaced by the memory of the bruises on Victoria's upper arms, which hadn't faded until a few weeks after their wedding. That anyone would treat a woman that way...it was unthinkable. That someone would treat _Victoria_ that way, knowing that someone _had _treated Victoria that way--had Victor been the type to lash out in anger, he probably would have kicked over the ottoman just then. And that that same someone had killed Emily. Stolen her dreams from her, put her in an early grave...there were just no words for it. To miss out on the sort of life that Victor and Victoria had enjoyed together so far...it was so terribly unfair.

Emily had been a vivacious, carefree, beautiful, and romantic young woman, even in death. _I wouldn't have been miserable with her...I might even have fallen in love with her, over time, _he thought. After all, he'd been at least halfway there when he'd agreed to join her in death.

But still, Victor's being dead with her wouldn't have undone what had happened to her. What sort of existence would that have been? Her murder would never have been avenged, she would never have found true release, if their wedding had gone as planned. Perhaps his opinions were being tempered by the distance of years and experience, but Victor couldn't imagine that death with Emily would have been the same as life with Victoria. True, death truly meant being together forever, and life ended eventually. But that's what made life all the more special. He truly couldn't see himself and Emily having the same sort of intimate conversations and moments that he shared with Victoria. Something about Victoria made him want to reveal everything about himself as soon as he looked into her eyes--and he knew she felt the same way about him. He hadn't had quite that same feeling with Emily. Nothing would ever have changed, neither he nor Emily would have grown at all...what sort of intimacies could they really have shared, after the first couple of years?

What if he and Emily really had been just too different, and came to realize it too late? Victor didn't think he could have bore the guilt that would have come with disappointing Emily--that had been the trouble thirty years ago. Besides, Victoria probably would have joined the happy party downstairs in short order, anyway. Imagine the guilt then, knowing that he had been the cause of Victoria's misery. His disappearance had led directly to her marriage to Barkis. Her death, the death of his soul mate, would have been on his head just as much as if he'd slit her throat himself.

As he'd gotten older, watching his daughters grow up and begin turning their thoughts toward marriage, he'd been almost paralyzed by the fear that what had almost happened to Victoria, and what _had _happened to Emily, would happen to one of them. They'd fall in love with someone, and then take the romantic adventure of eloping...and then Victor would have to go and collect their crumpled and lifeless bodies from underneath an oak tree. Victor had always felt terrible about what had happened to Emily, but having daughters of his own (especially a daughter like Catherine, who was very much like Emily in romanticism) had added an entirely different level of horror to the situation. Only when he was a father himself had he wondered how Emily's father must have felt when she never came home again. Had her father known what had happened, or simply thought that she'd run off and gotten married? _A father would know, _Victor had decided. And the man must have been beside himself. Not to mention Emily's mother, whom Victoria had expressed pity for when Victor had shared these morbid worries with her. To outlive one's children was bad enough, but to have them killed by someone who professed to love them...

Swallowing hard, Victor tore his mind from that train of thought. As Victoria had said once, it didn't bear thinking about--everything had turned out right in the end. And now here he was, thirty years later, happier than he'd ever thought possible. Sitting with his sketchbook in his own comfortable parlor, in the home that he and Victoria had made together. He had a wife that was like his other half, and he had four bright, good-hearted children. He even had a grandchild on the way--Anne was expecting a baby later in the year (Victoria was positively over the moon with the thought of a grandchild--she was nearly as excited as she'd been when she was expecting Lydia). It was remarkable, to say the very least.

And to top it all off, he no longer had to worry about the family business. At the moment, it seemed as though William was going to be around forever--he was already pushing ninety, and he was as spry as ever. Never missed a day of work, either. But eventually, he would pass away, and he'd said more than once that he didn't trust Victor with Van Dort's Fish any farther than he could hurl a grand piano across the town square (William had also gotten rather crotchety over the years). Nevertheless, there were no male heirs, and for some time William had considered the prospect of selling the whole business. But then, quite saving the day, Lydia had stepped up. Swimming very hard against the stream, she had been determined to put her intelligence (of which she had plenty) to good use. She'd never wanted to be a society lady, going so far as to refuse finishing school (_that _had thrown poor Victoria for a complete loop). And so, she'd convinced Victor, Victoria, and William that she should have a job at the cannery. She was a Van Dort, after all. It had been quite the experiment, one that everyone had watched warily as it unfolded. It had taken Victoria quite a while to comprehend that her oldest daughter wanted a job--despite wanting Lydia to be happy, she'd told Victor several times that she simply couldn't imagine a lady earning money. Especially not at a fish cannery.

Not that they'd had anything to worry about. Lydia had proven herself to be twice as competent at business as all of the men at the cannery put together. So the whole lot was going to her, even though she was Lydia Van Schelven now--two years ago she'd married the one member of the board who still outranked her at Van Dort's Fish, which even Victor had to admit was a good move. The plus was that Lydia was very happy with both her husband and the life she'd chosen, which was all Victor and Victoria really wanted for all of their daughters. In any case, Lydia and her husband would run the business, though Victor would technically be the owner. He'd never have to worry about the cannery, not with Lydia at the helm. He admired her tenacity, as well as her courage and self-assurance--she never cared what people would think of her for having a job, or running a business.

_Yes, _Victor thought, smiling as he stretched his arms, _I ducked that particular wire very neatly. _

So everything, all in all, was lovely. Life was very good. The only flaw that Victor could see was how fast his hair was falling out. It was the one thing he'd like to change. But then, one couldn't have everything. Maybe going bald was a small price to pay.

For another long moment, Victor just sat in his armchair, looking at nothing in particular. He was smiling slightly to himself as he continued to think about the way his life had turned out. All that had happened, just because he and Victoria had gotten married.

He was so deep in thought, and so disconnected from the physical world, that he very nearly suffered a stroke when Mary bounced into the room. She never simply walked. When she forgot that she wanted to be adult and sullen, she always bounced.

"Good morning!" she said brightly. Victor, who was clutching the armrests of his chair as he tried to get his breath back, took a moment to respond. Though still startled, Victor noticed that Mary seemed to be in a very good mood. Since it was such a rarity, he decided to just enjoy it, rather than question it.

"Good morning," he replied, managing a smile. "I wondered where you'd got to."

Mary waved a hand as she walked over to the bookshelf. After pulling a volume down seemingly at random, she said,

"Oh, I just couldn't seem to get up this morning. It's so gloomy out, it's almost better to stay in bed." So saying, she walked over to the sofa across from his armchair and took a seat, as Victor bent to pick up the sketchbook and his quill, both of which had fallen to the floor when he'd practically jumped out of his skin a moment ago. Settled again, he opened the pages to the sketch he'd been working on.

"I know what you mean," he told Mary. "It's always easier to get up when the sun is out. You know, though, I..." Victor trailed off. He'd finally taken a good look at his daughter. Words failed him. He just stared for a moment, then forced himself to turn his gaze to his drawing as he tried to work out whether he should say something or not. He probably should. He should just be careful to phrase it more tactfully than the question that was running through his head, which was:

_What on **earth **is she wearing?_

She must have been very tired, and in consequence had forgotten to get fully dressed before coming downstairs. It was the only explanation. The dress that she was wearing (if, in fact, it could be called a dress at all), was completely sleeveless. Her arms were completely bare, as were her legs from the knees down. The outfit was a dull shade of peach, and hung from her frame almost like a sack. The neckline was ridiculously low, showing almost all of her collarbone. Mary had topped off the ensemble with an odd pair of flat shoes, and had a ribbon wrapped about her forehead. What in the world had happened to her blouse? Where was the skirt? Victor wracked his brain, trying to think if she'd been outside yet today. Probably not, he decided. If she had gone outdoors, Victor would be bailing her out of the village's tiny jailhouse instead of sitting comfortably in his parlor.

"Mary," Victor said carefully, keeping his eyes on his sketchbook. He had the distinct feeling that this rare pleasant moment was about to come to an abrupt end.

"Yes?"

"Did you..._forget _something this morning?" He finally looked up again to see her looking puzzled.

"I don't think so," she replied, obviously thinking. "No, I didn't forget anything. But thank you for asking." With that, she began flipping through her book.

"Are you sure?" Victor asked. Finally Mary cocked her eyebrow at him.

"What are you talking about? Have I forgotten something?"

"I think so," he replied, not quite sure how to mention it. Where, oh where was Victoria when you needed her? Issues such as the one that Victor was bringing up were not within his jurisdiction as Father. However, since he was the only parent present...

"What?" Mary finally asked, sounding a little irritated. Victor sat back in his chair before he answered.

"Your dress, perhaps?" he said, gesturing pointedly at her with his quill. Mary paused for a moment, confused, then looked down at herself.

"This _is _my dress."

"Oh no, it's not," he replied firmly. Victor refused to believe that what Mary was wearing would qualify as a dress. He also had trouble believing that Victoria knew what she was wearing--if Victoria _did _know, there was no way Mary would have been allowed downstairs.

"It _is_," Mary insisted, exasperated. Planting her feet on the floor, she turned toward him and crossed her arms over her chest. "I made it myself. It's a new pattern. _Brand-new_," she added with emphasis, as though that made a difference.

"Mary, that is _not _a dress. It looks like a...like a..." Victor trailed off. The word he was looking for was "slip," but for some reason he couldn't bring himself to say it. Even after almost thirty years of living in the company of women, Victor hadn't quite gotten to the point where he was comfortable with the discussion of underthings. He knew what they were (vaguely), and had once actually helped collect them from the lawn after a nasty wind had ripped them off the clothesline, but to bring them up in conversation...that was asking a bit much.

"Like what?" Mary asked, her tone icy opposite of the one she'd been using when she entered the room. Victor was saved from having to answer as Victoria came into the room, carrying her sewing basket. For all her other virtues, Victoria really did have impeccable timing. He let out a silent little sigh of relief. She'd fix things. She always did.

"Good morning," Victoria said, closing the parlor door behind her. She was halfway to her rocking chair, which sat next to Victor's armchair, when she stopped dead. It had taken her half the time that Victor had taken to notice Mary's attire--which was why, Victor thought, she was Mother. For a moment it looked as though her eyes were going to pop from her head. Victor even leaned forward a bit, readying himself to catch just in case she dropped the sewing basket.

"My goodness, Mary!" Victoria finally exclaimed, bringing her hand to her cheek. "Where are your corsets?"

That was apparently the last straw for Mary.

"Well, fine, then!" she said huffily, standing up. Hands on hips, she glanced back and forth between Victor and Victoria. "Would you like me to go change?"

"Please do," Victoria replied gently as Victor nodded. "And thank you," she added as Mary stalked out of the parlor, grumbling under her breath.

With a sigh, Victoria sank into Mary's vacated place on the sofa. She was probably thinking along the same lines Victor was--about how they'd never had that kind of argument with any of the other girls. Now Mary was probably going to avoid them for the rest of the day, and was sure to be tetchy if she crossed paths with them. With a sigh, Victor offered Victoria an encouraging "oh well, what can we do?" sort of smile. She returned it, and got up to move into her rocker, sewing basket on her lap.

Even with a touchy, sullen daughter upstairs, this was another one of those lovely little moments that Victor would hated to have missed, now that he knew they existed. He was very, very content. And "content" was an extremely nice feeling.

Suddenly, Victoria looked over at him, hand to her mouth and looking horrified. Catching her eye, Victor looked back at her.

"What's wrong?" he asked.

"Victor..." She paused, and then began again.

"Victor, did you hear what I said to Mary a moment ago?" she asked.

"Yes. You told her to change her clothes. It was good advice, too," he replied. But Victoria shook her head slowly.

"No, I mean what I said before that." Victor closed his eyes for a moment.

"Victoria," he said, "Forgive me, but you're going to have to simply tell me what it is you're talking about. I'm afraid I'm lost." For a moment Victoria just sat there, her hand to her mouth. Then,

"I've...I've become my _mother_," she said in a breathlessly horrified sort of tone. Victor dropped his quill and turned to her.

"Darling," he told her seriously, "I promise you--no matter how long we're married, I will _never _let that happen."


End file.
